The THEORY that Sight Shooting is the way to shoot in Close Quarters Battle situations, has been around for 100+ years, and teaching it has kept many a trainer employed teaching its use.

But there is no documentation in the form of pictures and videos of Sight Shooting ever being used effectively in real Close Quarters life threat situations.

As bizarre as that may seem to be, it is the truth.

To Sight Shoot effectively, one must meet the marksmanship behaviorial requirements of taking a proper stance, getting a proper grip, correctly aligning the sights, obtaining a sight picture, proper breathing, and squeezing the trigger smoothly to the rear until each shot breaks.

And that can be a prescription for suicide given the reality of what happens in Close Quarters Life threat situations, where there is the greatest chance of being shot and/or killed.

In those situations, physiological and mental changes result from the instinctive, automatic, and unstoppable activation of our Fight or Flight response. And some of those changes, such as loss of fine motor skills, loss of near vision, loss of perphial vision, and changes in mental processing, can conflict with marksmanship behaviorial requirements. Also the dynamics and environmental conditions of armed encounters can prevent Sight Shooting from being used.

As such, confusion as to just what to do can occur, and in turn, may result in one being shot and/or killed.

The lack of any documentation in the form of pics and videos of sight shooting being used effectively in such situations, affirms this thinking, as does the hit rate in real close quarters armed encounters of less than 20%. Also, the now dated but still good NYPD SOP 9 study of some 6,000 police combat cases, found that 70 percent of Officers reported that they DID NOT use Sight Shooting.

Basically, unless you know of and are trained in the use an alternate shooting method, you will have no ready, practical, and effective means to use in your self defense.

I have a page on my web site that is set aside for the display of pics and videos of Sight Shooting being used effectively in CQB situations, and it has been empty for years now.

I qualified as an expert with an M-1 so I know that Sight Shooting does work for shooting beyond close quarters distances. The rub comes with its attempted use with a pistol in close quarters real life threat situations where the chance of being shot and/or killed is the greatest.

POINT SHOOTING WORKS IN COMBAT:

The following pictures show real people in real shooting situations using Point Shooting.

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This series of pictures shows some of the action in a drug store robbery.

The first picture shows that the robber's attention is on the druggist who is returning from an aisle and is holding up some pills.

The robber then notices the guard, who had acquired his gun, and is moving to confront the robber.

Note that the guard's pistol is in a two handed Isosceles type grip, which puts the gun close to his centerline and points it at the robber, and his thumbs are up, not forward along the frame. He also continues to move during the confrontation. Also note the druggist's movement during the sequence, as readily identified by his hand holding the pills.

The robber points his gun at the guard.

The robber is shot.

I was surprised that the guard was not shot when I saw the picture showing the robber's gun pointed at him. It clearly shows that the guard is a hairbreadth away from being shot. And that certainly would have happened, had the guard not shot the robber.

As to why the robber did not shoot, it could have been that he made the decision to shoot, and was physically in the process of doing that when he was shot.

I also wondered why the guard had not shot the robber, when the robber was bringing his gun around towards the guard. It may have been, as just mentioned about the robber, that the guard made the decision to shoot, and was in the mental/physical process of doing that. That process takes a fraction of a second, and during the lag-time, the robber pointed his gun directly at the guard.

Pictures freeze the actions being taken. So, it may look like things happened slower than they actually did. In real time, it took less than two seconds for the guard to move out from behind the counter, confront the threat, and then shoot.

These pictures are from a video of a shooting where an Officer also is taking aggressive action to stop a life threat.

Note the positioning of his feet as he moves naturally. He shoots 5 times in just over 1 second in the video, so unless he was Superman, it would have been impossible to meet the marksmanship requirements of Sight Shooting for each shot.

These pictures show a Chinese Police Officer, who after distracting a hostage taker who has a knife, moved quickly towards him and used her strong hand only to end the hostage situation.

These pictures are from the video of the armed assault on a Detroit Police station and show an Officer courageously responding to a very aggressive threat armed with a shotgun.

The picture which shows the Officer's gun hand fully extended was followed instantly by a shot from the perp which knocked the Officer back and down, and also shot off some of the fingers of his hand.

The video vividly and clearly shows that there was no time to employ the marksmanship requirements of pistol shooting that must be met to shoot a handgun effectively (a proper grip, stance, breathing, squeezing the trigger, etc.).

As in the other cases, there was no time to meet the marksmanship requirements that often are repeated as religious mantras by trainers who spout the theory of the use of Sight Shooting in real Close Quarters life threat situations.

The rub is that Sight Shooting has never shown up in pics and videos of real Close Quarters life threat situations.

The physiological changes brought on by the activation of our instinctive fight or flight response makes its use moot. Also, there just will be no time to take a proper stance, get a proper grip on the gun, align the sights, and squeeze the trigger smoothly back until each shot breaks in close quarters armed encounters.

And if you think you will do otherwise, and train as such, good luck to you, and RIP.

Here are pics showing the use of an isosceles type grip. In the second pic, notice that the shooter is looking over the gun and at the other person.

In the set of four pics below, three shots are fired in just over 1/2 of one second. There was no time to align or realign the sights, and squeeze the trigger until each shot was made.

Note that there is an Officer just to the left of the man who has a knife. He was lucky that he was not shot.